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[TenTec] RE: Power Supply & Equip. grounding

To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: [TenTec] RE: Power Supply & Equip. grounding
From: "Rob Atkinson, K5UJ" <k5uj@hotmail.com>
Reply-to: tentec@contesting.com
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:40:43 +0000
List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
Right. If the bonding between shack rf and service gnd. has to be long (long defined as long enough to be a 1/4 w. at highest frequency you operate on) it should be outside and below grade far enough to be in contact with moist earth at all times. Moist means not only damp but thawed in winter because ground resistance goes way up when frozen. Ideally you should get a ditch witch and carve a trench below the freeze line and lay copper strap that's cadwelded between your two ground electrodes (service and rf). This is beyond what most hams are willing to do, including me, so dig around your rods, clamp the strap, and get it down a foot or so with a pick and it should be okay most of the time. Use 1.5" copper strap, available in rolls from AES among others. A wire running along the basement wall inside for several feet (> 6') from rf ground to service will just radiate rf at some frequency and you don't want that. This little detail of station construction is left out when books etc. advise bonding rf and service grounds. This is probably because the books are written by professionals who are writing about, and for, professional installations. A professional/commercial installation usually involves the construction of a building designed for one thing: communications, not some guy's house. When you can build a commo vault from the ground up, you can place the gear and the service entrance right next to each other so the ground links are about two feet long.
(you can also bring in a backhoe and dig a trench all the way around outside and a lot of other things most of us can't do with our houses.)


My service entrance is in the darkest, coldest, dingiest part of my basement. That's not where I want my shack. Running an outside below grade bond is what I have to do.

Rob Atkinson
K5UJ

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